Curated OER
Writing Short Stories: The Fun Way
Do your young authors suffer from writer's block when they try to write short stories? Access their natural creativity with C-Gor, the writing monster! The instructional activity takes aspiring authors through a new writing process...
Curated OER
Writing Portfolio: An Autobiography Assignment
An extensive portfolio project encourages your kids to reflect on their personalities with multiple writing assignments. From activities on extended metaphors to writing about an important day in their lives, kids explore the way they...
University of Arizona
Fusing Firecrackers with Narrative
Improve your youngsters' descriptive writing. They study an object and write about what they see as a warm-up, then they read an excerpt from Paul Guest's memoir, One More Theory about Happiness. The next part of the activity prompts...
Curated OER
Borrowing Narrative Skills from Mr. Fletcher: Using a "Prompts in Reverse" Technique to Inspire Your Writers
Help your class find their writing voices with this lesson which uses the work of Ralph Fletcher to guide a "Prompt in Reverse" activity. Using the chapter "First Pen" from Fletcher's Marshfield Dreams, learners decipher what they...
Curated OER
Using Opening Lines as Writing Prompts
Help your writers get started with these hooks! Twenty-five opening lines from the "Lives" column in the New York Times Magazine act as prompts for creative writing. Have your learners choose one prompt and write an original essay....
Curated OER
A Handmade House Book with Student Writing
Use this lesson for your bookmaking project. First, young writers work on making an accordion fold house book. After composing a variety of pieces of writing, they can use their book to store their writing. The structure is ideal for a...
Curated OER
Lesson Plan 10: Writing Really Good Dialogue
Boring dialogue can run a great story into the ground; get your novelists using dialogue as a tool to move their story into deeper and more developed territory. As part of a larger writing series, this lesson has a worksheet that can...
Curated OER
Lesson: I Am the Wall
The Maya created amazing stone carvings and sculptures, but what were they for? Kids analyze the significance and purpose of a Maya stela and then write a creative piece. They imagine they are the stela, and write a story about what life...
Curated OER
Narrative Writing
Students complete activities to learn narrative writing. In this narrative writing lesson students are given writing prompts in order to better understand how to write in a narrative format.
Curated OER
Activity 3: Composing Personal Narratives
What was your most (exciting, maddening, nervous, thrilling, etc.) experience in school? A part of a unit on narrative writing, in this lesson plan class members review the elements of the form and then choose an event when they learned...
Weebly
Holocaust Diary Project
Here is a good interdisciplinary project that combines creative and narrative writing with studies of the Holocaust. Your young historians will compose a diary of experiences from the perspective of an individual living during the time...
Curated OER
Getting Hooked, Introduction for a Narrative
How can you interest your reader? Here is a great lesson on reading and discussing the characteristics of a narrative. Elementary schoolers explore writing techniques to hook the reader. They identify their hook and share their...
Curated OER
Creative Writing
High schoolers determine what grammar is and how they have learned it. In this creative writing lesson, students read "Style' Gets New Elements," and respond to the discussion questions. High schoolers then present grammatical rules to...
Curated OER
Dance and Writing
Fourth graders use dance moves to perform narratives. In this dramatic performing lesson, 4th graders use strong and soft movements to show what character's voice is portraying. Students also use movement to show the feelings in the...
Curated OER
Bucket List Poetry
What is on your pupils' "Bucket Lists" - the list of things they want to do before they die? Their choices of activities for this list could be very revealing, and is a great source of inspiration for a personal poem. The lesson prompts...
Curated OER
Unforgettable...
Middle and high schoolers remember their most memorable experiences, and then connect their own narrative with an exposition about the topic associated with their experience. This New York Times lesson would be a great addition to your...
Curated OER
Happy Holidays
Learners create holiday story while working in cooperative learning groups, using Chris Van Allsburg's Polar Express as a writing prompt.
Curated OER
Responding to Literature: James and the Giant Peach
Fifth grade reader/writers create an alternate ending to an episode in Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach in which our protagonist "loses" the chance to magically solve all his problems. Prompts students not only to write creatively...
Curated OER
A Year in Review: The Memoir
If you are planning a unit on memoir and autobiographical narrative, you should consider this resource. Using Internet research skills, pupils review works by James Frey and Henry David Thoreau. In response to these works, learners...
Curated OER
A Picture's Worth 500-700 Words: Neoclassical Painting Analysis and Creative Write
Middle schoolers survey Neoclassical art and create a narrative based on their analyses. Focused questions and relevant background information provided by the Getty Museum provides a great foundation for students to understand art...
Curated OER
Fourth Grade Writing Lesson #1/ Narrative Prompt
Fourth graders produce narrative about a personal experience, with a focus on the trait of organization.
Curated OER
Write into Fantasy, Humor and Suspense
Students discuss the characteristics of several different writing genres. They are given a prompt to and work in groups to continue writing in the style of a humorous, fantasy or suspense story. They share their stories with the class.
Curated OER
Quick Writes
Students write on a variety of topics, maximize creative and expository writing skills, develop focused writing, organize ideas, incorporate detail in writing, and exhibit varied and precise word choice.
Curated OER
What's The Story?
Groups of learners get together and are given copies of the state quarter reverses from the 2002 US Mint issue. Each pupil makes up a story that's based on the scene that appears on the reverse side of the quarter. The goal is for all...